THE THOUSAND

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To trace the real beginning of the expedition we must go back to the summer of 1859. When the war ended in the manner which he alone had foreseen, Mazzini projected a revolutionary enterprise in the south which should restore to the Italian movement its purely national character and defeat in advance Napoleon's plans for gathering the Bourbon succession for his cousin, Prince Murat.
He sent agents to Sicily, and notably Francesco Crispi, who, as a native of the island and a man of resource and quick intelligence, was well qualified to execute the work of propaganda and to elude the Bourbon police.
 Crispi travelled in all parts of Sicily for several months, and in September he was able to report to Mazzini that the insurrection might be expected in a few weeks—which proved incorrect, but only as to date. Mazzini forbade his agents to agitate in favour of a republic; unity was the sole object to be aimed at; unity in whatever form and at whatever cost.(above Orsini and Crispi in an Italian drama)




In March 1860 he had an interview in London with the man who was to become the actual initiator of the revolutionary movement in South  Italy. This was Rosalino Pilo, son of the Count di Capaci, and descended through his mother from the royal house of Anjou, whose name, Italianised into Gioeni, is still borne by several noble families in Sicily.
Rosalino Pilo, who was now in his fortieth year, had devoted all his life to his country's liberties. After 1849, when he was obliged to leave Sicily, he sold his ancestral acres to supply the wants of his fellow exiles, and help the work of revolutionary propaganda.
Handsome in person, cultivated in mind, ready to give his life, as he had already given most of what makes life tolerable, to the Italian cause, he won the affection of all with whom he was brought in contact, and especially of Mazzini, from whom he parted after that last interview radiant with hope, and yet with a touch of sadness in his smile, as if in prevision that the place allotted to him in the ranks of men was among the sowers, not among the reapers.
bourbon flag bearer


Rosalino Pilo believed, as Mazzini believed, that Sicily was ripe for revolution, but he realised the fact that under existing circumstances there was an exceeding probability of a Sicilian revolution being rapidly crushed. It was the tendency of Mazzini's mind to think the contrary; to put more faith in the people themselves than in any leader or leaders; to imagine that the blast of the trumpet of an angered population was sufficient to bring down the walls of all the citadels of despotism, however well furnished with heavy artillery. Pilo saw that there was only one man who could give a real chance of success to a rising in his native island, and that man was Garibaldi.
As early as February he began to write to Caprera, urging the general to give his co-operation to the projected movement. It is notorious that the scheme, until almost the last moment, did not find favour with Garibaldi. In spite of his perilous enterprises, the chief had never been a courtier of failure, and he understood more clearly than  his correspondent what failure at that particular juncture would have meant. The ventures of the Bandieras and of Pisacane, similar in their general plan to the one now in view (though on a smaller scale). ended in disasters, but disasters that were useful to Italy. A disaster now would have been ruinous to Italy. Garibaldi's hesitations do not, as some writers of the extreme party have foolishly assumed, detract from his merit as victorious leader of the expedition; they only show him to have been more amenable to political prudence than most people have supposed.



Rosalino Pilo wrote, finally, that in any case he was determined to go to Sicily himself to complete the preparations, and he added: 'The insurrection in Sicily, consider it well, will carry with it that of the whole south of the peninsula,' by which means not only would the Muratist plots be frustrated, but also a new army and fleet would become available for the conquest of independence and the liberation of Venetia. The writer concluded by wishing the general 'new glories in Sicily in the accomplishment of our country's redemption.'



True to his word Rosalino Pilo embarked at Genoa on the 24th of March, on a crazy old coasting vessel, manned by five friendly sailors. He had with him a single companion, and carried such arms and ammunition as he had been able to get together. Terrible weather and the deplorable condition of their craft kept them at sea for fifteen days, during which time something of great importance happened at Palermo. On the 4th of April the authorities became aware that arms and conspirators were concealed in the convent of La Gancia, which was to have been the focus of the revolution. Troops were sent to besiege the convent, which they only succeeded in taking after four hours' resistance; its fall was the signal for a general slaughter of the inmates, both monks and laymen. The insurrection was thus stifled in its birth in the capital, but from this time it began to spread in the country, and when, at last, Rosalino Pilo landed near Messina on the 10th of April, he found that several armed bands were already roving the mountains, as yet almost unperceived by the Government, which had gone to sleep again after its exhibition of energy on the 4th. Events were, however, to awake it from its slumbers, and to cause it to renew its vigilance. It required all Rosalino Pilo's skill and courage to sustain the revolution of which he became henceforth the responsible head, till the fated deliverer arrived.Messina



Pilo's letters, brought back to Genoa by the pilot who guided him to Sicilian waters, were what decided Garibaldi to go to the rescue. Some, like Bixio and Bertani, warmly and persistently urged him to accept the charge; others, like Sirtori, were convinced that the undertaking was foredoomed, and that its only result would be the death of their beloved captain: but this conviction did not lessen their eagerness to share his perils when once he was resolved to go.
Bixio in 54mm

Like all born men of action, Garibaldi did not know what doubt was after he came to a decision. From that moment his mental atmosphere cleared; he saw the goal and went straight for it. In a surprisingly short time the expedition was organised and ready to leave. 'Few and good,' had been the rule laid down by Garibaldi for the enrolments; if he had chosen he could have taken with him a much more numerous host. When it was the day to start few they were (according to the most recent computation the exact number was 1072 men), and they were  certainly good. The force was divided into seven companies, the first entrusted to the ardent Nino Bixio, who acted in a general way as second-in-command through both the Sicilian and Neapolitan campaigns, and the seventh to Benedetto Cairoli, whose mother contributed a large sum of money as well as three of her sons to the freeing of Southern Italy. Sirtori, about whom there always clung something of the priestly vocation for which he had been designed, was the head of the staff; Türr (the Hungarian) was adjutant-general. The organisation was identical with that of the Italian army 'to which we belong,' said Garibaldi in his first order of the day.



One name is missing, that of Medici, who was left behind to take the command of a projected movement in the Papal States. By whom this plan was invented is not clear, but simultaneous operations in different parts of the peninsula had been always a favourite design of the more extreme members of the Party of Action, and Garibaldi probably yielded to their advice. All that came of it was the entry into Umbria of Zambianchi's small band of volunteers, which was promptly repulsed over the frontier. Medici, therefore, remained inactive till after the fall of Palermo; he headed the second expedition of 4,000 volunteers which arrived in time to take part in the final Sicilian battles.



Garibaldi's political programme was the cry of the Hunters of the Alps in 1859: Italy and Victor Emmanuel. Those who were strict republicans at heart, while abstaining from preaching the republic till the struggle was over, would have stopped short at the first word Italy. But Garibaldi told Rosalino Pilo, who was of this way of thinking, that either he marched in the King's name or he did not march at all. This was the condition of his acceptance, because he esteemed it the condition on which hung the success of the enterprise, nay more, the existence of an united Italy.

The Thousand embarked at Quarto(Right), near Genoa, during the night of the 5th of May on the two merchant vessels, the Piemonte and Lombardo, which, with the complicity of their patriotic owner, R. Rubattino, had been sequestered for the use of the expedition. On hearing of Garibaldi's departure, Cavour ordered Admiral Persano, whose squadron lay in the gulf of Cagliari, to arrest the expedition if the steamers entered any Sardinian port, but to let it go free if they were encountered on the high seas. Persano asked Cavour what he was to do if by stress of storms Garibaldi were forced to come into port?
The answer was that 'the Ministry' decided for his arrest, which Persano rightly interpreted to mean that Cavour had decided the contrary. He resolved, therefore, not to stop him under any circumstances, but the case did not occur, for the fairest of May weather favoured the voyage, and six days after the start the men were quietly landed at Marsala without let or hindrance from the two Neapolitan warships which arrived almost at the same time as the Piemonte and Lombardo, an inconceivable stroke of good fortune which, like the eventful march that was to follow, seems to belong far more to romance than to history




On the day before, the British gunboat Intrepid (Captain Marryat), and the steam vessel Argus, had cast anchor in the harbour of Marsala. Their presence was again and again spoken of by Garibaldi as the key to the mystery of why he was not attacked. No matter how it was done—it may have been a mere accident—but it can hardly be doubted that the English men-of-war did practically cover the landing of the Thousand. Lord John Russell denied emphatically to the House of Commons that they were sent there for the purpose, as to this day is believed by some grateful Italians, and by every Clerical writer who handles the subject. The British Government had early information of Italian revolutionary doings, just then, through Sir James Hudson, who was in communication with men of all shades of opinion, and it is credible that orders which must necessarily have been secret, were given to afford a refuge on board English ships to the flying patriots in the anticipated catastrophe. More than this is not credible, but the energy shown by Captain Marryat in safeguarding the interests of the British residents at Marsala caused the Neapolitan ships to delay opening fire till the very last Red-shirt was out of harm's way on dry land. Then and then only did they direct their guns on the Piemonte and Lombardo, and fire a few shots into the city, which caused no other damage than the destruction of two casks of wine.



On the 12th, Garibaldi left Marsala for Salemi, a mountain city approached by a steep, winding ascent, where he was sure of a warm reception, as it had already taken arms against the Bourbon king. Hence he promulgated the decree by which he assumed the dictatorship of Sicily in the name of Victor Emmanuel.



The Neapolitan army numbered from 120,000 to 130,000 men; of these 30,000 were actually in Sicily at the time the Thousand landed at Marsala, 18,000 being in and about Palermo, and the rest distributed over the island. At Salemi, Garibaldi reviewed his united forces: he had been joined by 200 fresh volunteers, and by a fluctuating mass of Sicilian irregulars, which might be estimated to consist of 2,000 men, but it increased or decreased along the road, because it was formed of peasants of the districts traversed, who did not go far from their homes. These undisciplined bands were not useless, as they gave the  Bourbon generals the idea that Garibaldi had more men than he could ever really count upon, and also the peasants knew the country well. When they came under fire they behaved better than anyone would have expected. The first batch joined the Thousand half-way between Marsala and Salemi. There might have been fifty of them, dressed in goat-skins, and armed with the old flint muskets and rusty pistols dear to the Sicilian heart, which he would not for the world leave behind were he going no farther than to buy a lamb at the fair. The feudal lord marched at the head of his uncouth retainers—a company of bandits in an opera—yet, to Garibaldi, they seemed the blessed assurance that this people whom he was come to save was ready and willing to be saved. He received the poor little band with as much rapture as if it had been a powerful army, and, in their turn, the impressionable islanders were enraptured by the affability of the man whom the population of Sicily soon came seriously to consider as a new Messiah. It is a fact that the people of Southern Italy did believe that Garibaldi had in him something superhuman, only the Bourbon troops looked rather below than above for the source of it.
The picturesque incidents of the historic march were many; one other may be mentioned. While the chief watered his horse at a spring a Franciscan friar threw himself on his knees, and implored to be allowed to follow him. Some of the volunteers thought the friar a traitor in disguise, but larger in faith, Garibaldi said: 'Come with us, you will be our Ugo Bassi.' Fra Pantaleo proved of no small use to the expedition.
calatafimi


A glance at the map makes clear the military situation. Garibaldi's objective was Palermo, and if anything shows his genius as a Condottiere it is this immediate determination to make straight for the capital where the largest number of the enemy's troops was massed, instead of seeking an illusionary safety for his weak army in the open country. As the crow flies the distance from Marsala to Palermo is not more than sixty or seventy miles, but the routes being mountainous, the actual ground to be covered is much longer. About midway lies Calatafimi, where all the roads leading from the eastern coast to Palermo converge, and above it towers the immensely strong position called Pianto dei Romani, from a battle in which the Romans were defeated. These heights command a vast prospect, and here General Landi, with 3,000 men and four pieces of artillery, prepared to intercept the Garibaldians with every probability of driving them back into the sea.
pianto di romano today


The royal troops took the offensive towards ten o'clock on the 15th of May. They met the Red-shirts half way down the mountain, but were driven up it again, inch by inch, till, at about three o'clock, they were back at Pianto dei Romani. A final vigorous assault dislodged them from this position, and they retreated in disorder to Calatafimi. Not wishing to tempt fortune further for that day, Garibaldi bivouacqued on the field of battle. In a letter written to Bertani, on the spur of the moment, he bore witness with a sort of fatherly pride to the courage displayed by the Neapolitans: 'It was the old misfortune,' he said, 'a fight between Italians; but it proved to me what can be done with this family when united.
 The Neapolitan soldiers, when their cartridges were exhausted, threw stones at us in desperation.' How then, with much superior numbers and a seemingly impregnable position, did they end in ignominious flight? The answer may be found in the reply given to Bixio, bravest of the brave, who  yet feared, at one hotly-contested point, that retreat was inevitable. 'Here,' retorted the chief,'we die.' Men who really mean to conquer or die can do miracles.The 4th tiralleurs of Naples by antonini





The moral effect of the victory was tremendous. The world at large had made absolutely sure of the destruction of the expedition. 'Garibaldi has chosen to go his own way,' said Victor Emmanuel; 'but if you only knew the fright I was in about him and the brave lads with him!' In Sicily, where the insurrectionary activity of April was almost totally spent, the news sent an electric shock of revolution through the whole island. hudson
In the mountains Rosalino Pilo still resisted, weary of waiting for the help that came not, discouraged or hopeless, but unyielding. Food and ammunition were almost gone; his ragged band, held together only by the magnetism of his personal influence, began to feel the pangs of hunger. A price was set on his head, and he was harassed on all sides by the Neapolitan troops, whose attacks became more frequent now that the Government realised that there was danger. He knew nothing of Garibaldi's movements; but he was resolved to keep his promise as long as he could: to hold out till the chief came. At the hour when everything looked most desperate, a messenger arrived in his camp with a letter in Garibaldi's handwriting, which bore the date of the 16th of May. 'Yesterday,' it ran, we fought and conquered.' Never was unexpected news more welcome. Filled with a joy such as few men have tasted, Rosalino read the glad tidings to his men. 'The cause is won,' he said. 'In a few days, if the enemy's balls respect me, we shall be in Palermo.'
Renda


Meanwhile Garibaldi had occupied Calatafimi, and was proceeding towards Monreale, from which side he contemplated a descent on the capital. On the high tableland of Renda he met Rosalino Pilo with his reanimated band. That day the Garibaldian army, all told, amounted to 5,000 men. On the 21st of May, Rosalino was ordered to make a reconnaissance in the direction of Monreale; while carrying out this order a Neapolitan bullet struck his forehead, causing almost instantaneous death. 'I am happy to be able to give my blood to Italy, but may heaven be propitious once for all,' he had written when he first landed, words realised to the letter.Calatifimi Calatifimi by Legat




The Neapolitans were put in high spirits by Rosalino Pilo's death; the discomfiture of Calatafimi was forgotten; they represented Garibaldi as a mouse that was obligingly walking into a well-laid trap. In fact, his position could not have been more critical, but he had recourse to a stratagem which saved him.
He succeeded in placing the enemy upon a completely false scent. Abandoning the idea of reaching Palermo from the east (Monreale), he decided to attempt the assault from the south (Piana de' Greci and Misilimeri), but, all the while, he continued to throw the Sicilian Picciotti on the Monreale route, and gave them orders to fire stray shots in every direction and to light innumerable camp-fires.
 These troops frequently came in contact with the Neapolitans in trifling skirmishes, and kept their attention so well occupied that General Colonna, in command of the force sent in search of the 'Filibuster,' did not doubt that the whole Garibaldian army was concentrated over Monreale.
Garibaldi rapidly moved his own column by night to its new base of operations. The ground was steep and difficult, and a storm raged all the night; fifteen years later he declared that none of his marches in the virgin forests of America was so arduous as this.
While the Neapolitans remained in ignorance of these changes, three English naval officers, guided by a sort of sporting dog's instinct, happened to be driving through the village of  Misilmeri just after Garibaldi established his headquarters in that neighbourhood.
 Of course it was by chance; still, Misilmeri is an odd place to go for an afternoon drive, and the escapade ended in the issue of a severe warning to Her Majesty's officers and marines to keep in future 'within the bounds of the sentinels of the royal troops.'
Luckily record exists of the experiences of Lieutenant Wilmot and his two companions at Misilmeri. Garibaldi, on hearing that three English naval officers were in the village, sent to invite them to the vineyard where he was taking his dinner. They found him standing in a large enclosure in the midst of a group of followers who all, like himself, wore the legendary red flannel shirt and grey trousers. Fra Pantaleo's brown habit formed the only exception. Several Hungarian officers were present, and by his father stood Menotti, then a stout youth of nineteen, with his arm in a sling from the severe wound he received at Calatafimi. Around were soldiers who looked like mere boys. They gazed with delight on the English uniforms. Garibaldi requested his guests to be seated and to partake of some freshly-gathered strawberries. He spoke of his affection and respect for England, and said it was his hope soon to make the acquaintance of the British admiral. He mentioned how he had seen and admired from the heights the beautiful effect of the salutes fired in honour of the Queen's birthday, two days before. He then retired into his tent, made of an old blanket stretched over pikes; a child, under the name of a sentry, paced before it to keep off the crowd.
menotti garibaldi

TO LOSE A KINGDOM

d Francesco of Naples anmd general staff by antoniniIn Milan there is a nasty little school of snobs and its run by some dick from the North of England for rich kids. Dickhead runs the school with pride thinking not one wit about the ethics of the enterprise but Northerners are like that once you give them power and thus my little anecdote goes some way to realising what Italy was in 1859,nothing changes.
During the journey from Turin to Genoa, Garibaldi was occupied in opening, reading and tearing up into small pieces an enormous mass of letters, while his English companion spent the time in vainly speculating as to what this vast correspondence was about. Ferdinan

Garibaldians

 When they approached Genoa, the floor of the railway carriage resembled a gigantic wastepaper basket. It was only afterwards that Lawrence Oliphant guessed the letters to be responses to a call for volunteers for Sicily.





The origin of the Sicilian expedition has been related in various ways; there is the version which attributes it entirely to Cavour, and the version which attributes it to not irresponsible personages in England. The former was the French and Clerical official account; the latter has always obtained credence in Germany and Russia. For instance, the late Duke Ernest of Saxe-Coburg said that 'the mystery of how 150,000 men were vanquished by a thousand Red-shirts was wrapped in English bank-notes!' Of this theory, it need only be said that the notion of Lord Palmerston (for it comes to that) supporting a foreign revolution out of the British exchequer is not one that commends itself to the belief of the average Englishman. With regard to the other theory—namely, that Cavour 'got up' the Sicilian expedition, it has been favoured to a certain degree, both by his friends and foes; but it will not bear careful examination. As far as Sicily goes (Naples is another thing), the most that can be brought home to Cavour is a complicity of toleration; and even this statement should be qualified by the addition, 'after the act.(right Anita Garibaldi)
' It is true that, in the early days after Villafranca, he had exclaimed: 'They have cut me off from making Italy from the north, by diplomacy; very well, I will make her from the south, by revolution!' True, also, that earlier still, in 1856, he expressed the opinion, shared by every man of common sense, that while the Bourbons ruled over the Two Sicilies there would be no real peace for Italy. Sharpshooter Naples 1859
Nevertheless, in April 1860, he neither thought the time ripe for the venture nor the means employed adequate for its accomplishment. He was afraid that Garibaldi would meet with the death of the Bandieras and Pisacane.
No one was more convinced than Cavour of the importance of Garibaldi's life to Italy; and it is a sign of his true superiority of mind that this conviction was never entertained more strongly than at the moment when the general was passionately inveighing against him for the cession of Nice.
To Cavour such invectives seemed natural, and even justified from one point of view; they excited in him no bitterness, and he was only too happy that they fell upon himself and not upon the King, since it was his fixed idea that, without the maintenance of a good understanding between Victor Emmanuel and Garibaldi, Italy would not be made. Few men under the sting of personal attacks have shown such complete self-control.
Bourbon Cavalry by Antonini



 As has been stated, when Francis II. ascended the Neapolitan throne, he was invited to join in the war with Austria, and he refused. Since then, the same negative result had attended the reiterated counsels of reform which the Piedmontese Government sent to that of Naples—the young King showing, by repeated acts, that not Sardinia but Rome was his monitress and chosen ally in Italy. (below Bourbon Navy 1860)
The Pope had lately induced the French General Lamoricière to take the command of the Pontifical troops, and he and the King of Naples were organising their armies, with a view to co-operating at an early date against the common enemy at Turin. In January 1860, Lord Russell wrote to Mr Elliot, the English Minister at Naples: 'You will tell the King and his Ministers that the Government of her Majesty the Queen does not intend to accept any part in the responsibility nor to guarantee the certain consequences of a misgovernment which has scarcely a parallel in Europe.'ùLine infantry Naples
 Mr Elliot replied, early in March: 'I have used all imaginable arguments to convince this Government of the necessity of stopping short on the fatal path which it has entered. I finished by saying that I was persuaded of the inevitable fall of his Majesty and the dynasty if wiser counsels did not obtain a hearing, and requested an audience with the King; since, when the catastrophe occurs, I do not wish my conscience to reproach me with not having tried all means of saving an inexperienced Sovereign from the ruin which threatens him.
The Ministers of France and Spain have spoken to the same effect.' Even Russia advised Francis to make common cause with Piedmont. In April, Victor Emmanuel wrote to his cousin, 'as a near relative and an Italian Prince,' urging him to listen while there was yet time to save something, if not everything. 'If you will not hear  me,' he said, 'the day may come when I shall be obliged to be the instrument of your ruin!'
It has been said that the Sardinian Government, in tendering similar advice, hoped for its refusal and contemplated the eventuality hinted at with the reverse of apprehension. Of course this is true. Yet the responsibility of declining to take the only course which might by any possibility have saved him must rest with the King of Naples and not with Victor Emmanuel and his Ministers.

 The attempt to make Francis (left) appear the innocent victim of a diabolical conspiracy will never succeed, however ingenious are the writers who devote their abilities to so unfruitful a task.The Queen fought rigourously to save the Kingdom but it was not enough. See the post before this

The truth

 

With the bloodbath of Magenta and Solferino(above) San Martino over and the Austrians on retreat it was on the 18th of January 1860, the Emperor admitted to Lord Cowley that, though there was as yet no arrangement between himself and Victor Emmanuel on the subject, he intended to have Savoy. After the long series of denials of any such design, the admission caused the most indignant feeling in the English ministers and in the Queen, who wrote to Lord John Russell: 'We have been made regular dupes.' She went on to say that the revival of the English Alliance, and the hymns of universal peace chanted in Paris on the occasion of the Commercial Treaty, had been simply so many blinds, 'to hide from Europe a policy of spoliation.' Cavour came in for a part of the blame, as, during the war, he denied cognisance of the proposal to give up Savoy. The best that can be said of that denial is, that it was diplomatically impracticable for one party in the understanding of Plombières to make a clean breast of the truth, whilst the other party was assuring the whole universe that he was fighting for an idea.
cowleygiven away in a newspaper were these paper soldiers of 1859





















When the war was broken off, Cavour fully expected that Napoleon, of whom he had the worst opinion, would then and there demand whole pay for his half service; and this had much to do with his furious anger at Villafranca; but later, in common with the best-informed persons, he believed that the claim was finally withdrawn. When, however, Napoleon asked again for the provinces—not as the price of the war, but of the annexations in Central Italy—Cavour instantly came to the conclusion that, cost what it might (and he thought that, amongst other things, it would cost his own reputation and popularity), the demand must be granted. Otherwise Italian unity would never be accomplished.
the peace of villafranca

sapper 1859

Savoy regt 1859

emilian officer 1859 of artillery




emilian infantry 1859




























In spite of this, however, and in spite of the difficulty of judging an act, all the reasons for which may not, even now, be in possession of the world, it is very hard indeed to pardon Cavour for having yielded Nice as well as Savoy to France. The Nizzards were Italians as the lower class of the population is Italian still; they had always shown warm sympathy with the hopes of Italy, which could not be said of the Savoyards; and Nice was the birthplace of Garibaldi!







1859













England would have supported and applauded resistance to the claim for Nice on general grounds, though her particular interest was in Savoy, or rather in that part of the Savoy Alps which was neutralised by treaty in 1814.
Major General Savoy


It was the refusal of Napoleon to adopt the compromise of ceding this district to Switzerland which caused the breach between him and the British ministry. From that moment, also, Prussia began to increase her army, and resolved, when she was ready, to check the imperial ambition by force of arms. 'The loss of Alsace and Lorraine,' writes an able publicist, M.E. Tallichet, 'was the direct consequence of the annexation of Nice and Savoy.'





Savoy 1859Piedmontese infantry















If anything could have rendered more galling to Italy the deprivation of these two provinces, it was the tone adopted in France when speaking of the transaction. What were Savoy and Nice? A barren rock and an insignificant strip of coast! The French of thirty-four years ago travelled so little that they may have believed in the description. The vast military importance of the ceded districts has been already referred to. dead horse fattori
Savoy Chassuer 1859


Some scraps on the Nice frontier were saved in a curious way: They were spots which formed part of the favourite playground of the Royal Hunter of the Alps, and it was pointed out to Napoleon that it would be a graceful act to leave these particular 'barren rocks' to his Sardinian Majesty. The zig-zags in the line of demarcation which were thus introduced are said to be of great strategic advantage to Italy. So far, so good; but it remains true that France is inside the Italian front-door.Lancers of Genoa 1859



mazzini















At the elections for the new Chamber in March 1860, the Nizzards chose Garibaldi; and this was their real plebiscite—not that which followed at a short interval, and presented the phenomenon of a population which appeared to change its mind as to its nationality in the course of a few weeks. In voting for Garibaldi, they voted for Italy.Magnificent statue of Anita . she was Garibaldi's South american wife.


savoy Brigade 1859



















The Nizzard hero made some desperate efforts on behalf of his fellow-citizens in the Chamber, not his natural sphere, and was on the brink of making other efforts in a sphere in which he might have succeeded better. He had the idea of going to Nice with about 200 followers, and exciting just enough of a revolution to let the real will of the people be known, and to frustrate the wiles of French emissaries and the pressure of government in the official plebiscite of the 15th of April.original Garibaldian uniform
Cavalry office Savoy 1859


The story of the conspiracy, which is unknown in Italy, has been told by one of the conspirators, the late Lawrence Oliphant. The English writer, who reached Turin full of wrath at the proposed cession, was introduced to Garibaldi, from whom he received the news of the proposed enterprise.Tiralleur officer Savoy 1859



Oliphant offered his services, which were accepted, and he accompanied the general to Genoa, where he engaged a diligence which was to carry the vanguard to Nice. But, on going to Garibaldi for the last orders, he found him supping with twenty or thirty young men; 'All Sicilians!' said the chief. 'We must give up the Nice programme; the general opinion is that we shall lose all if we try for too much.' Volunteers of Savoy 1859



He added that he had hoped to carry out the Nice plan first, but now everything must be sacrificed to freeing Sicily. And he asked Oliphant to join the Thousand, an offer which the adventurous Englishman never ceased to regret that he did not accept. As it was, he elected to go all the same to Nice, where he was the spectator and became the historian of the arts which brought about the semblance of an unanimous vote in favour of annexation to France.

Officer of artillery Lombardy 1859

French 1859

















The ratification of the treaty—which, by straining the constitution, was concluded without consulting Parliament—was reluctantly given by the Piedmontese Chambers, the majority of members fearing the responsibility of upsetting an accomplished fact. 54mm Italian dragoons in 1859 by AMB group
Cavour, when he laid down the pen after signing the deed of cession, turned to Baron de Talleyrand with the remark: 'Now we are accomplices!' His face, which had been depressed, resumed its cheerful air. In fact, though Napoleon's dislike of the central annexations was unabated, he could no longer oppose them. Victor Emmanuel accepted the four crowns of Central Italy, the people of which, during the long months of waiting, and under circumstances that applied the most crucial test to their resolution, had never swerved from the desire to form part of the Italian monarchy under the sceptre of the Re Galantuomo.
 The King of Sardinia, as he was still called, had eleven million subjects, and on his head rested one excommunication the more. The Bull fulminated against all who had, directly or indirectly, participated in the events which caused Romagna to change hands, was published a day or two before the opening of the new Parliament at Turin.

Emilian Cavalry attached to the Savoy regiment of the King 1859



















Addressing for the first time the representatives of his widened realm, Victor Emmanuel said: 'True to the creed of my fathers, and like them, constant in my homage to the Supreme Head of the Church, whenever it happens that the ecclesiastical authority employs spiritual arms in support of temporal interests, I shall find in my steadfast conscience and in the very traditions of my ancestors, the power to maintain civil liberty in its integrity, and my own authority, for which I hold myself accountable to God alone and to my people.'Piedmont Dragoons by GPS . These are Italian m,ade toy soldiers and expensiveAustrians1859





















The words: 'Della quale debbo ragione a Dio solo ed ai miei popoli,' were added by the King to the speech prepared by his ministers; it was noticed that he pronounced them with remarkable energy. The speech concluded: 'Our country is no more the Italy of the Romans, nor the Italy of the Middle Ages; no longer the field for every foreign ambition, it becomes, henceforth, the Italy of the Italians.'